Walking With a Ghost
by Emma Wright
Summary: Three years after Christine chooses Raoul, their marriage is falling apart and she is pregnant with his unwanted child. She leaves him and sets out to reclaim what she should have chosen a long time ago...EC, please R&R.
1. Prologue

Prologue

**Opéra Populaire, 1 hour after the first and only performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_**

"You try my patience. Make your choice." Erik's blue eyes burned, flooded with anger, pain, and an almost childish hope.

"I…" Christine Daaé looked helplessly at her surroundings. A choice had been laid out before her, almost neat in the midst of the chaos of the night. In front of her stood Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, with a Punjab lasso fasted just tightly enough around his neck to slightly impair his breathing. To her left was Erik, the Phantom, the Opera Ghost. The only man she'd ever loved. She could choose to marry Erik and let Raoul go free. Refuse Erik, and Raoul would be killed.

But how could she choose? She was so young, a mere seventeen. How could she choose between these two men? The choice was obvious. She loved Erik more deeply than anyone or anything else. But his face was horribly disfigured on the right side, the scarring covered by a white leather mask. She could not choose him. To choose him would mean a life confined to the shadows, hiding from the light that would expose Erik's face. He was considered a freak.

To choose Raoul would be so simple. It would be accepted by society and she could have every material thing she could dream of. But try as she might, she could not make herself feel anything more than a sisterly affection for Raoul, her friend since childhood. It was the easy way out.

_I am so weak…so weak,_ thought Christine, tears welling and blurring her vision.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped forward, towards Erik. Looking into the depths of his eyes, she lifted her face to his and kissed his lips, something that she had long ached to do. After moments, she pulled back, searching his face for any sign of emotion. She could not keep herself from him. She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. Christine pressed every inch of herself into him, memorizing his scent, his shape, the way he tasted. He kissed her back, begging her silently to stay with him. Unsurely, he put his hands through Christine's hair, and in that moment she loved him more than ever.

"Please forgive me," she whispered against his lips, and pulled back.

Sobs racked Erik's body. He knew he could never ask her to stay with him and condemn her to a life of darkness, a life with a man that disgusted and horrified her. He loved her so much, more than anyone. Enough to set her free.

"Go. Leave me. Forget all you've seen." He could feel his soul crumbling as he spoke. "Take the boat, and swear to me never to tell the secret you know of the angel in Hell." Staggering towards Raoul, he cut the lasso and freed him.

Raoul grabbed Christine, wrapping her in his arms. Over his shoulder, Christine's eyes never left Erik's broken and defeated form. She allowed herself to be led towards and settled into Erik's gondola.

As they pulled away from the shore, it was all she could do not to hurl herself out of the boat and back towards Erik, relieving his sorrow and anger. She had betrayed him. She had failed him.

Erik silently sobbed as he watched them drift away. He had no idea of Christine's inner battle. He turned away from their departing forms. Grabbing a candlestick, he began smashing every mirror in his labyrinth, making certain that he would never have to see the deformity that had stolen from him everyone he had ever loved.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reviewing…it's inspired me to continue with this. Still not entirely sure where it's going, hang in there! Love all of you.

Chapter 1

**September, Paris, 3 years after the first and only performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_**

Wake me up when September ends. – Green Day 

"Good morning, Raoul," Christine said, stopping in the doorway to the room he was sleeping in.

"Is there something you need?" he asked curtly, never even getting up to look at her.

"No, I was just…" Her voice trailed off.

"If it's nothing important, then please go find something to do. I have no need for you right now."

Hurt, Christine retreated from his room. Three years after their wedding, Christine and Raoul de Chagny's marriage was falling apart. True, he had once loved her, but that had long since evaporated.

Christine was now four months pregnant with what was hoped to be the Viscount's heir. In a pitiful attempt to win Raoul back, she had agreed to bear his child.

She aimlessly strode down their extravagantly furnished hallway, not taking in a speck of what was around her. _This is the life I chose, _she thought bitterly. _I must make this work. _

Christine still had nightmares of that night in the bowels of the opera house. She would see Erik's face, the hurt in his eyes as she pulled away from him. She had nightmares that she would return to Erik and he would not take her back, telling her that after that night that she chose Raoul, she had died to him. She dreamt of Heaven, sometimes, and she would be falling asleep wrapped in his embrace, instead of two rooms down from her husband who loved only himself.

Christine wanted to leave so badly. She hated the life she had chosen for herself, a life full of simpering maids who would listen to your secrets and tell them to all their friends, ensuring their eventual spread around Paris. A life with an unwanted child and an unloving husband who probably had many, many mistresses.

As Christine reached the top of the staircase, she felt a hand roughly grab her shoulder and spin her around. She looked into the handsome, cold features of her husband.

"I thought I told you to find something to do?" he asked, a sneer creeping across his face.

"I…just…" she faltered, praying that he would just stop at that.

"This doesn't look like you're doing anything. Do you consider yourself _useful_? Do you know what _useful _is, Christine?"

"I…yes, I…" All Christine could do was babble when faced with his anger.

"Would you rather have not married me and been a maid in a house like mine?"

"No…I just…"

"God damn it, why can't you ever answer for yourself? Why do you just splutter and stand there an imbecile!" Raoul shouted, slamming his fist against the mahogany-paneled wall.

Christine said nothing, tears seeping from her eyes.

"ANSWER ME!"

Still she didn't reply, wishing him away from her with every fiber of her being.

"Then leave! Get out and leave right now. You know what, Christine? I knew this would happen. I knew you would turn into a zombie after the _Don Juan _fiasco!" he stopped, breathing heavily. "I saw how you looked at that…that _freak_," he spat the word, "after you kissed him." Raoul's voice quieted, a weakness creeping into it that Christine had never heard before. "You never once looked at me like that."

"Raoul, I–"

"DON'T EVEN START, Christine. This is the end. After you have my child, I want you gone." He saw the look of shock on her face and laughed. "You didn't really think I still loved you, did you? Do you have no perception? You'd think that our sleeping in different rooms would clue you in. The only reason I've kept you around so long is because I want an heir!" He reached towards her and slapped her across the face.

Something inside of Christine snapped. She was done.

"STOP IT, RAOUL!" she shrieked, and he was so shocked that he actually obeyed. "You are so right. I did love that, what did you call him, _freak. _The only reason I chose to go with you that night is because it was the easy thing to do. I hate _you,_" she struck out and hit him squarely in the nose, "I hate this _house_," she grabbed a painting off the wall and put her foot through it, "I hate this _life_!

"Oh, and you know what else, Raoul? This heir means so much to you. Want to see how much he means to me?"

She turned towards him with an insane smile, and her eyes rolled as she closed them briefly. Raoul could only watch, a look of pure horror contorting his face. Christine laughed an insane, mirthless laugh and approached the top of the staircase.

With a final look at Raoul, she spread her arms out and fell forwards, sickly reveling in the way her lower abdomen hit the edge of every single step on her descent.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: Okay…so my muse wasn't quite working with me on that last chapter, but once I get into my swing, it'll be fine. Get ready for Erik!

_As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,_

_I take a look at my life_

_And realize there's nothing left. - Coolio_

Chapter 2

**September, Paris, 3 years after the first and only performance of _Don Juan Triumphant_**

The cloaked figure moved swiftly through the Parisian streets, clutching to him a small crate. He arrived at a tall building with a beautiful stucco façade. On the door was a simple bronze plaque, reading _Dr. Barnabé Sordeau. _Erik rang the bell and almost instantly the door was opened by a squat maid.

"I have a delivery for Dr. Sordeau. Is he still awake?" the man asked.

"Oh, yes, he was expecting you. You must be the Monsieur Voltaire he has been speaking of. May I take your cloak?"

"No." the man replied curtly. "I would wish to keep it on. Please show me to Dr. Sordeau."

The maid bristled at being addressed so rudely, but all the same led the strange man down a lavishly furnished hall to a set of oak paneled doors.

"Monsieur Sordeau is in there. You may enter." With that, the maid stepped aside and let the hooded man brush past her and into the room, shutting the doors tightly behind him.

The man had been a different sort than usually arrived at the Sordeau residence. He was clothed entirely in black. He stood well over six feet, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. The man himself was quite slender and had been dressed impeccably in trousers tucked into expensive-looking boots, and a linen shirt with a black vest over it. Although his head was hooded by his cloak, she could have sworn she saw, however, the white glint of a mask.

_But why would anyone be wearing a mask over one half of their face? _she thought, and shook the idea from her head. Her eyes were certainly not what they once were.

――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

"Monsieur Sordeau." A cold voice echoed from the back of his sitting room. Barnabé Sordeau spun in his seat to see a tall, black-clothed man holding a small crate standing in his doorway.

"Ah, Voltaire! I presume that is my order?" Sordeau asked, sounding pleased to see even this strange man. He was in general a pleasant character.

"Yes. A selection of the most powerful medicines I can make. I hope they may be of use."

"Voltaire, how can I thank you?" Sordeau inquired. "This is of great use to me in my practice."

"Do not bother. It was not much trouble, and as I was in the area…"

Sordeau stood, and produced from his pocket a thick wad of bills. He took the crate from Erik and pressed them into his palm.

"I do not mean to be rude, but I must depart. I have other business to attend to. Good evening, Sordeau." Volatire said, bowing out of the room.

The man left the house without saying anything to the maid as he passed her. The door swung shut behind him with a loud bang.

Erik turned left and began to make his way towards the Opéra Populaire. There were items that needed to be reclaimed from the bowels of the opera house that had once been his home. He no longer lived there. The memory of a certain chorus girl-turned-ingénue had driven him from the place.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_On sleepless roads the sleepless go. –Jimmy Eat World_

**A/N: **Okay, back to Christine and the baby. Thank you so much to all my reviewers! I love you and please keep at it.

"Oh Raoul…" Christine moaned from where she lay crumpled at the base of the stairs, a strange puddle of fluid pooling beneath her. "What will become of your heir now?"

Summoning her strength, she lifted herself from the floor and rushed out of the front doors, heading to the only place she could call home― the Opéra Populaire. If Christine hadn't been in her current situation, she would have been completely exhilarated by leaving. She was finally doing what she had dreamed of for the last year.

She staggered down the streets, her face a bloody mess, her arms and torso very bruised. She was unrecognizable unless you were extremely close to her and could see her blue eyes, which were currently clouded with pain and slight insanity. Thankfully, it was growing dark by the time she left the property (the winter days were so short, it seemed), and her cloak covered most of her injuries.

A terrible pain seized her lower abdomen. Was this a contraction? Christine could feel a dull panic residing within her. Was she about to have a miscarriage? What if she gave birth right here on the street? Why was she still not at the opera house?

After about another quarter hour of stumbling along as her abdomen continued to twinge, she reached a large iron grate on the Rue Scribe side of a large, heavily ornamented building. She wrenched it open and fell through the large hole it left, slamming the grate behind her.

The Opéra Populaire was once a grand, beautiful building. While it still looked like it may once have been beautiful, it was quite dilapidated. After a large fire which had practically gutted the building, use had been discontinued. There was now another larger, grander opera house on the other side of Paris. The bowels of the opera house, however, had not been touched by the fire. Everything that had once been there still remained.

Christine picked her way through corridors and tunnels until, at last, she came to a very old-looking gondola which, miraculously, was still intact. She felt the ground along the shore near the boat and finally found a pole to push the boat with.

She pushed for some time, blind in the darkness, praying that her memory was not tricking her. It was not. She finally came to a shoreline, where it looked like there had once been a house of some sort.

Christine clambered from the boat, the contractions growing ever stronger and closer together.

"Erik!" she called. "Erik, are you here?"

No one replied.

Collapsing from exhaustion, she fainted.

* * *

Christine came to sharply fifteen minutes later, though it felt like an eternity.

She cried out as she felt the baby begin to move from her. The rest of the birth came as instinct, and soon a newborn child was laid before her, covered in blood and fluids. It was terribly mangled from her fall down the stairs, and had taken on a slightly bluish hue. It was unmistakably stillborn. Grabbing a sharp rock, she cut the umbilical cord, and clutched her child to her breast.

"Shhh…it's okay," she crooned, oblivious to the fact that the child in her arms was lifeless. "I'm here."

* * *

Erik soundlessly turned down the Rue Scribe and opened a large grate in the Opéra Populaire's side. He descended a flight of stairs, not noticing the fresh blood lining the staircase. He came to where his gondola should normally reside―

But it was gone.

Cursing, Erik jumped into the water. It only came to about his waste. He slowly made his way towards his old home, taking note of which things had been plundered since his departure.

After a short time of wading, he came to the shore.

There was someone curled up there.

Slowly, he approached, presuming the person to be dead. He nearly had a heart attack when the figure shot upright.

They had long brown hair matted with blood, and a bloody, tearstained face. Their eyes rolled with delirium and clutched a mangled, clearly dead child to themselves.

"Don't come any closer. Don't come near my child."

Erik stopped dead in his tracks. There was something very familiar about this broken girl.


End file.
